


the waves are crashing down on you and me (i’ll see you on the other side)

by shield_maiden



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: M/M, SPOILERS!!!!, Season 3 Fix it, Unrequited Love, absolutely not related to any other harringrove fic ive done, consider yourselves warned, fuck you suffer brothers, im still sad abt everything, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-06
Updated: 2019-07-06
Packaged: 2020-06-22 10:10:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19665301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shield_maiden/pseuds/shield_maiden
Summary: He briefly wonders if he’s dead, and if this is purgatory. He thinks of Max, her panicked, tear stained face his last memory.He almost wishes his last memory was of Steve, but he doubts that would be any less painful.





	the waves are crashing down on you and me (i’ll see you on the other side)

**Author's Note:**

> Fam I am so heckin sad about that final episode. Billy (and Hopper!) deserved better. So here’s my contribution to the flood of fix it fic I guess. 
> 
> The title is from The Waves by Bastille (plz go listen to their whole new album it’s *chefs kiss*)
> 
> I feel like I could easily do a few more chapters on this one so if you’d like that please let me know in the comments/on tumblr @lesbian-rob1n where I’ll also be posting this work (yes I changed my URL in honour of my new queen)

It’s quiet here, in the endless darkness.

Billy finally feels like he can just rest.

He’s so tired, he doesn’t remember ever being this tired before and he feels his body grow heavy, like he’s going to sink into the ground and stay here forever.

‘Good’ he thinks to himself. It’s the first thought that has been solely his own in over a week. There’s no growling, roaring monster in his head. In his body.

He’s faintly aware of water, he can feel it, lapping around him. He smells the ocean and he feels like he’s floating in the darkness.

He’s about to slip into the easy embrace of sleep when ahead of him in the blackness, a figure materialises. Blonde hair, a white dress with blue and red flowers, yellow sandals covered in sand. 

His mom.

He tries to call out to her, but she doesn’t hear him. 

He briefly wonders if he’s dead, and if this is purgatory.

It’s comforting, to know that if it is, he wasn’t instantaneously earmarked for hell. He thinks of max, her panicked, tear stained face his last memory.

He almost wishes his last memory was of Steve, but he doubts that would be any less painful.

His eyelids are growing heavy again, and he’s about to slip away.

Then a wave crashes into him and everything changes.

Again.

——————————————

He takes a huge shuddering breath in, or as much of one as he can. His chest hurts.

It’s fucking bright, a stark contrast to the calm easy darkness. Shapes and shadows move hazily above his head and he struggles to focus, to place himself amid the brightness and the flurry of activity that is registering dimly at the edges of his mind.

There’s an obnoxious beeping sound to his right, and something stuck to him. Multiple somethings. He starts trying to disentangle himself, but he doesn’t even get the first thing off before he feels something cold rush into his veins and the world goes blurry again.

———————————————

He doesn’t wake up in the dark place again. 

Instead he wakes up in a dimly lit hospital room.

The first thing he’s aware of is how much fucking pain he’s in. It’s somehow worse than all the beatings Neil had ever given him and he goes rigid with the effort of trying not to scream.

The second thing he becomes aware of is the mop of red hair, slumped over on the edge of his bed.

Max. 

His fingers reach for her, except they don’t quite feel like his own, it’s like they’re disconnected from the rest of his body, or maybe he’s disconnected from the rest of his body. But he manages to clumsily tap her on the head - not quite the gesture he was aiming for but he can only do so much - until she stirs, blinking sleepily at him until a big grin spreads over her face and she launches herself at him, hugging him as best she can while weeping hysterically about how he had died.

‘Well shit.’ He thinks as he slowly brings the hand without an IV in it up to rest on her upper back, to feel the hitching gasps of her breath as her tears slide down her cheeks and onto his neck. 

Her relief and sadness crashes over him like waves.

It’s something else, learning that you had actually died and been brought back to life - never mind having what he thinks now was a near death experience. He takes his own shuddering breath as Max finally pulls away. 

He’s alive. 

He’s not quite sure what to do with that information, or how to feel about it. 

Death had been nice, from what he’d seen. It was peaceful and quiet. His mom had been there. No Neil to beat him to a pulp, no mask of hyper sexuality to keep in place. He’d felt like he was able to let all of that go and just rest for the first time in so long. The loss of it almost makes him want to cry.

A nurse comes in to give him pain killers- her name tag reads Doris- she’s no nonsense, but not unkind as she checks his vitals and shines a light in his eyes, tutting at him when he instinctively squints at the glare. She explains his laundry list of injuries, three broken ribs, a collapsed lung, a head injury, internal bleeding, it goes on and on. They’d kept him sedated for three days, trying to give his body a chance to heal.

He and Max stay silent as she scratches down her notes in his file, he has questions he wants to ask his sister, but he knows better than to ask them now, with anyone else in the room.

Finally Doris leaves, after showing him how to use the call button and asking Max if she’d like anything from the cafeteria and Billy breathes a small sigh of relief.

“Is-“ his voice is hoarse and scratchy from disuse and he has to swallow thickly a few times before he tries again. “Is everyone okay?”

The pained look of sadness on Max’s face is enough to send a chill through him as she shakes her head sadly. “Hopper, he uh, he didn’t make it. The Russians had some kind of generator thing under the mall, trying to open the gate to the upside down, he died shutting it off.”

Billy feels his heart sink and they lapse into silence again as Max sniffles quietly, he knows she was friends with Hopper’s kid. It’s bad enough that Heather and her parents had died at his hands, and he feels the guilt like the teeth of the shadow monster, ripping into his flesh at the knowledge that Hopper has lost his life too. 

“Russians?” He asks, when he can bring himself to speak again. “The Upside Down? Is that where that thing came from?” 

Max nods like she’s relieved to think and talk about something other than death, and launches into an explanation that he struggles to follow through the haze of pain killers, he’s definitely going to have to ask her to explain it again when he’s not drugged out of his mind.

There’s a gentle knock on the door and Max stops mid sentence as they both look over to see who’s there. It’s Steve, his face a stunning array of black and blue. Billy hopes to god that he didn’t do that, not again. Not to Steve.  
“Hey—” Steve says, his eyes as wide as saucers as he takes in Billy’s new found state of consciousness, carding his fingers through his hair. 

Max stifles a giggle, and both of their gazes snap to her. 

“Max, I’m here to take you home.” Steve says, rolling his eyes as Max opens her mouth to argue with him. “No, it’s raining again and I’m not letting you skate home, and you know you can’t stay here.” 

Billy gets the distinct impression that this argument has happened before, as he watches Max gather her things in a huff. She pauses before she leaves, leaning down to hug him again.

“I’m glad you’re okay, Billy.” She whispers as her thin fingers clutch at his hospital gown. And then she’s gone, slipping past Steve with a promise that she’ll be back tomorrow. Steve asks her to wait for him near the elevators.

Steve doesn’t move from the doorway, Billy can feel his gaze lingering, and he meets it as best he can. 

“You just gonna stand there, pretty boy?” He drawls, his speech going pain killers slurred. Something blooms in his chest as he watches Steve duck his head, a blush rising on his cheeks as he steps into the room.

“You look like shit.” Steve says with a small smile, as he sits in the same chair Max had been in a moment ago.

Billy snorts and looks at him again. “So do you.”

Then his hand is reaching out, his fingers ghosting over Steve’s cheekbone, skirting the edge of his black eye. 

“Did I-?” He can’t bring himself to finish and swallows thickly as Steve’s eyes flutter shut and he just barely leans into his touch. 

“No.” Steve murmurs. “It wasn’t you.”

‘Jesus Christ he’s fucking pretty.’ Billy thinks to himself as he allows his hand to fully cup Steve’s cheek in a way he would never have done if he were sober and hadn’t had a literal near death experience just days ago.

“You’re fucking pretty, Harrington.” The words flow out of him like the ocean going out with the tide and he looks at Steve with heavy eyes. These drugs must be something else if they’ve got him saying all these things he definitely should not be saying.

But Steve doesn’t seem to mind, he just smiles sad and soft and shakes his head, letting Billy’s hand fall away from his face and back onto the bed, next to his own.

Billy briefly thinks Steve is going to say something, but he doesn’t. And Billy can’t fight the pull of sleep anymore.

Just as he’s about to go under he feels a hand brush his, and a quiet voice echoing what Max had said to him minutes ago.

“I’m glad you’re okay, Billy.”


End file.
